<p>I’ve gotten at least half a dozen paid internship offers in the 6 1/2 months since graduation from NYU, including a few from companies that I’ve worked at before, that I’ve been unable to take because it just so happens that I’m a recent grad, not a student. As a student, I was able to make nearly 200 dollars a day. Now, I can’t find a job, or even an internship. I can’t even apply for most UNPAID internships at good companies. Why do so many companies so adamantly insist their interns be current students, even when the internships are often full-time? Is this for tax purposes or something? It’s really discouraging and I just don’t understand… I just turned 22, it’s not like I’m 60 and wouldn’t fit in… Someone suggested to me that it’s an insurance liability or something. Also, sometimes when I was a student, internships required I got credit for me internships, which I generally did not. Is this all just a bunch of pointless red tape, or is there a genuine reason for wanting a current student only?</p>
<p>For paid internships, who knows why they prefer current students. For unpaid internships, it is illegal for companies to have people working for nothing unless they are getting college credit for it. And the rules are very strict about what they do - they have to be learning, not just providing free labor. Department of Labor Fact Sheet on Internships:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf[/url]”>http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf</a></p>
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<p>That’s not exactly correct. The company has to demonstrate that the internship provides a significant learning opportunity for the intern. The easiest way to do this is by offering college credit; however, something like an apprenticeship program would qualify even if the person was not in college.</p>
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<p>This is going to sound terrible, but if you’re a full-time graduate looking for an internship, you’re viewed as damaged goods. The thought is that the good students find full-time positions at graduation and internships are seen as a last resort from people rejected elsewhere. Why would you want to hire someone that apparently no one else wants? It’s a little harsh, but that’s the mindset.</p>
<p>“But I’m asking for an internship. If I’m horrible don’t offer me a full-time job. There’s no risk.” Companies look at their internship process as an interview process. It’s not cheap labor; most of the time interns cost you more than they make you. The benefit from having interns is that converting an intern to a full-time employee is much cheaper, easier, and has lower risk than a new hire. From that perspective, if I have 1 internship slot, I want to fill it with the best potential full-time employee. If I have a choice between a 3.2 GPA rising senior and a 3.2 GPA new graduate (all else being equal), I choose the rising senior because the new graduate has the greater potential to be “damaged goods” because my competitors rejected him for full-time. It’s very similar to the problem described in Akerlof’s The Market for Lemons.</p>
<p>That might not be your situation and you might not think it’s fair, but that’s the way it works. If you’re a new graduate, keep applying. But (counter-intuitively) you’ll probably have better luck applying for full-time positions.</p>
<p>Haha, no offense taken. I am of course looking for full-time positions, first and foremost. But internships are a good way to network into a company. I should have mentioned that I’m looking in the entertainment industry, where I sometimes see entry-level assistants in their late twenties and thirties. So I think it’s a little different. I’m a screenwriting major so there aren’t exactly a barrage of entry-level jobs that the good writers are supposed to get. They’d just sell scripts or get staffed which normally happens 7-10 years after graduation (okay, technically, it normally doesn’t happen). I’ve been looking in TV Research (Nielsen, etc.) for jobs and I actually found one in June, which I naively turned down because I thought I could get something better at that point in time, as it was a low paid “trainee” temp job. I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me. Luckily, almost everyone with my major does irrelevant work before they break into the writing business. But I think in general, you’re probably right. I’m also a political science double major, but that’s of no help either. The internships search is just part of my hopefully-not-too-desperate quest to prove film school wasn’t a total waste of money, damn recession… </p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I actually have an interview scheduled for an internship at one of the biggest entertainment companies in the country next week, which is one of the reasons I asked. They specifically wanted a recent grad, and would interview no one else, which got me thinking…</p>
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<p>government agencies have unpaid interns, off the top of my head the list includes Homeland Security and the State Department. Of course, the official title might be something else, like “unpaid volunteer”…</p>